Why Alibaba, Other Tech Peers Are Slumping In Hong Kong Today

Shares of U.S.-listed Chinese companies slumped heavily in Hong Kong on Tuesday as the market opened after a long weekend.

While Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA, JD.Com JD, and Baidu Inc BIDU were among the biggest losers, while Tencent Holdings TCEHY shed 2.35% at press time.

On Monday, shares of these Chinese tech giants ended on a similar note in U.S. markets.

Global Markets Recap: The benchmark Hang Seng Index tumbled 2.58%, a near two-month low, as major tech stocks swung wildly during early trading.

That came amid the weakening outlook of the Chinese economy and the hefty overnight losses in the U.S. stock market that saw the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropping more than 5%.

Elsewhere, in the broader markets, Australia's ASX 200 slipped 1.36%, and Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 0.93%, while Shanghai's SSE Composite Index erased early losses to gain 0.43%.

The Macro Factors: The data released over the weekend showed that China's unemployment rate climbed to 5.8% in March – the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang referred to the country's unemployment situation as "complex and grave." In two years, the jobless rate has risen to the highest levels amid ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks.

Data also shows that China's exports grew by 3.9% in April compared with a year earlier – the slowest in two years as it took a likely hit from President Xi Jinping's "dynamic zero-COVID" policy.

Company In News: China's ban on younger users from sending virtual gifts on Livestream platforms could hamper companies, including Alibaba, TikTok parent ByteDance, and Kuaishou Technology KUASF.

Tencent-owned Riot Games, the maker of the popular computer game "League of Legends," sued ByteDance unit Shanghai Moonton Technology in Los Angeles and blamed it for a "blatant copying" of the game's mobile version.